A Picture of Normalcy
by ItsADuckStupid
Summary: “I died a little while ago though, and I have something of Michael’s, thought he might want it back.” 11


Title: A Picture of Normalcy  
  
Author: Duck  
  
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine, nor will it ever be.  
  
Distribution: Cover Me, Ff.net, SD-1, AllAlias. Anyone else, ask and you shall receive.  
  
Summary: "I died a little while ago though, and I have something of Michael's, thought he might want it back."  
  
A/N: I'm a hypocrite. I seriously wasn't going to write one because I don't read them, but my hand took control, I swear. Dani told me this would be funny if it wasn't depressing, so take that as you will. Thanks to the many people that helped me out: Dani (the one that cursed my hand in the first place :P), Kyle, Neumy, and SAG. Let me just say, titles are a bitch. Took me like 3 days to think of that one.  
  
This was my depressed writing, cause the last couple days have been absolute hell for me, and surprisingly, it didn't come out angst-ridden. Here's to the people that made it that way. Thanks for the inspiration.  
  
1/1  
  
*  
  
Everyone has their breaking point. This is hers.  
  
Picture this:  
  
A husband and wife, sitting at a dining room table, eating their dinner peacefully, making small talk and generally enjoying themselves.  
  
To most, this would not affect them at all; perhaps they would smile a little, or even stare blankly at it, bored by the normalcy.  
  
She is not like most.  
  
She picks up a movie at Blockbusters, an old romantic film that she can cry miserably over, and sigh wistfully before berating herself for wishing she could ever have a love like that. She did, and now it's gone, and she is dealing with it. At least, this is what she tells herself every night as she attempts to sleep in a large, cold, empty bed.  
  
This evening, she barely glances at the tape as she shoves it rather forcefully into the VCR, takes no notice of the lack of sound for several moments as she situates herself with a large glass of Merlot and a bag of unsalted popcorn. She does notice, however, when the scene explained above appears on her television. It stabs her deeply in the area of her heart that is still so tender, and knocks her wineglass over in a haste search for the remote.  
  
Cursing, she finds it, but not before she hears words uttered from the video, words she never exchanged with the one person she should have.  
  
"I love you."  
  
Everyone has their breaking point. This is hers.  
  
*  
  
He stopped expecting to see her at his door several months ago, and accepted that she was no longer a part of his life, that she had moved on, independent and happy in her own world. At least, this is what he tells himself as he watches his wife undress for bed every night.  
  
She is unaware of the changes he has undergone, and as brilliant as she is, can't seem to notice that he has been depressed, hardly eating and sleeping even less. He has nightmares when he does sleep, so he has reverted back to his Syd-is-on-a-mission insomniac ways. It is worse though, now that he has no idea whether or not she's even working for the CIA, no idea where she is or whom she is with.  
  
Lauren, a Professor of Biology at UCLA, is one of the smartest women he's ever met, besides Sydney, and was surprised when she took an interest in his slowly emaciating form and social life. She was one of those women that like to fix men up, conform them to their ideals and principals. For once, she found a man that would let her, and she married him in five months. He had quit the CIA at her request, had become a professor of law at her suggestion. He didn't really consider his life his own anymore, it was Lauren's, and since he didn't want to live for himself, why not live for her.  
  
At the time of her proposal, it had been a novel idea. Sydney was dead, Jack was missing, and Eric could barely look him in the eye. It was easy to lose himself in Lauren's world, to become a Professor and make Professor friends. To go out to dinner with other happily married couples, and to become normal.  
  
It wasn't something he ached for until he met Sydney, and even after her departure, he felt that ache still. Lauren, he felt, was a package deal. With her he also got normalcy, companionship, and the chance to live the life his mother had always wanted him to. He would have been a fool to turn it down, just because he pined for someone who would never come back, who was dead, plain and simple. Michael Vaughn is not a fool.  
  
Normalcy is still a part of his daily life; he has dinner with his wife nearly every night, out with friends at least once every two weeks, and ESPN. Lauren had been hinting at the thought of bringing a child into the world, and at the time, it hadn't seemed like a bad idea. They were living a nice, comfortable life. It would still be comfortable with the addition, so he had given his consent. Now.now he was uneasy.  
  
All that normalcy is going out the window tonight, although he hasn't quite realized it yet. Dinner is over, dishes washed and put away, and he is nursing a beer in front of the TV. Lauren usually comes down to join him after correcting some papers, but tonight she is strangely absent. He thinks nothing of it, although a clench to his gut asks him if it's because she's feeling nauseous, or just because she collected a major paper that day. He hopes with all of his will it's the latter, because he is suddenly wary about a baby.  
  
A knock at the door catches his attention, although he wouldn't classify it as a knock, rather a hurried rapping, and he can imagine someone standing there, bouncing back and forth on their feet, waiting for him to hurry up and open the door. Because the normalcy is second nature now, he doesn't even bother to check the peephole, expecting, perhaps, the neighbor complaining because Donovan broke loose again, or a pizza guy that got his address messed up.  
  
The last thing he expects to see is Sydney Bristow, eyes wild, and a picture frame in her hand.  
  
*  
  
After the video incident, all semblance of control that reigned over her disappeared without a trace. Two years, no memories, and a scar on her abdomen had stretched her limit, and hearing those sacred words had broken it.  
  
She is pacing now, biting her thumbnail until it bleeds, and even then she ignores the stab of pain to her finger, because she has ignored the stabs of pain to her heart for months. And suddenly, it's the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
She must give him back his picture frame. Will had saved it, given it to her with all of her other personal items he had kept. The frame, she told herself, was what was driving her crazy. She needed to have him completely out of her life, out of her heart, out of her soul. The picture frame was what was causing her the pains, the reminder of him every time she walked past her closet.  
  
Without removing the picture, she grabs it roughly from behind her shoes that have collected at the bottom of her closet, blowing dust away and scrambling, trying to find those damn car keys she was sure she left on the counter. Once finding them (in her purse, of all places), she rushes out to the car, and makes her way to the address she memorized when she first came back, just so she could find him if she needed to.  
  
*  
  
They both stare for a few seconds, and she temporarily loses her wild drive to give him back the one thing that she has convinced herself is driving her crazy. She could have just left it on his doorstep, and the message would have been clear, but no, she had to knock like someone on crack and give it to him face to face. She has a knack for torturing herself like that.  
  
"Sydney? Is everything ok?" he asks, and then wants to smack himself upside the head for asking. Of course everything is not ok, because she doesn't remember a damn thing, and he's married to (he takes her point of view for a moment) some bimbo he picked off the street. She's obviously here for a reason, and noting the picture frame in hand, it probably has something to do with ridding herself of everything that reminds her of him. That stings a little.  
  
She doesn't answer, but he notices that she has lost the spirit she had when he opened the door. She must have come over on impulse, he thinks, as her grip on the picture frame seems to lessen. A thudding from behind makes him wince as he realizes that Lauren probably heard the noise and is coming to investigate. Not something he has looked forward to, the two women he loves coming to face-to-face, one scorned and the other oblivious.  
  
"Michael? Who's at the door?" she calls, the voice coming closer until her hand rests on his shoulder. He tenses at her touch, but she doesn't seem to notice. She doesn't notice a lot of things, he thinks, as she smiles at the visitor.  
  
Sydney is strong. That's a proven fact. She's had her ass kicked, and then done some ass kicking herself. She breaks down rarely, and when she does its completely expected, because she deserves the breakdown. She has not braced herself for meeting the Mrs. that makes up Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn, and is feeling one of those crying scenes approaching quickly.  
  
"Hi, I'm Lauren. Are you an associate of Michael?" she asks, still smiling, although with a slight edge as if to say, if you're here to steal my husband, back off bitch. The challenge is all Sydney needs to remember why she came, and she smiles, a little evilly.  
  
"I used to be. I died a little while ago though, and I have something of Michael's, thought he might want it back."  
  
Sure she heard something wrong, Lauren's smile falters only a little, convincing herself that it was late and her brain wasn't processing correctly. Vaughn, shocked that Sydney would say something like that, wants to ask her if she's mental, but refrains fearing the wrath that would follow.  
  
Shoving the picture frame rather forcefully into his stomach, Sydney's evil smile disappears. It is replaced by the patented I'm-hurt-and-its-your- fault-so-don't talk-to-me glare. He doesn't argue, hating the fact that he's the one that's causing the glare, hating that she has to go through this, and alone no less.  
  
The hurt in his eyes overwhelms her, and for the first time she really truly considers that this is hurting him just as much as its hurting her. They would be in this together like everything else that's come before, but there is another person entered into the equation that throws it off balance, that makes it null, unequal.  
  
Mrs. Vaughn.  
  
So she does an abrupt about face and practically runs to her car, squealing the tires as she pulls out of the quaint little suburban track, hoping she wakes everyone in a half-mile radius. He can only stare after her, stomach knotted up, throat blocked, and vaguely wondering what the hell happened.  
  
"Michael? Is everything ok?" Lauren asks, squeezing his arm gently, bringing him back to reality with an alarming crash. He nods, not trusting his voice to squeak something out, and turns to go back inside. He then realizes he's still holding the picture frame, the one that caused him so many problems. There is still a picture of he and Sydney inside, and it's the one she loved the most. They are at the pier (some tourist offered to take it), holding hands in broad daylight. She has never looked happier than at that moment, and it kills his heart to think that she may never be that happy again.  
  
Lauren looks at the picture with a raised eyebrow, hoping he'll explain the madness that just occurred outside. When he doesn't, she sighs and heads to the kitchen for a glass of water. Michael never talks to her about his past. His childhood, sure, but mostly on Brigitte's insistence, and never about his early adulthood. In fact, the only thing she knows about the years before she met him is that he worked for the Bureau, and he was friends with an Eric Weiss.  
  
Vaughn needs to throw this frame and picture away, so he's not haunted by her presence anymore than he already is, but he can't bring himself to do it. It is evidence his time with Sydney wasn't just some dream he concocted to get through his lonely days at the office. He wants to be reminded of the good times he had with her, because those were some of the happiest days of his life. No one wants to forget those days. So, without responding to the silence Lauren has created to make him spill the story behind the pretty brunette, he climbs the stairs to the attic, places the frame in the box with other Sydney memorabilia. He has only kept a few things, nothing that would catch Lauren's attention, but things that reminds him of her.  
  
With a sigh, he closes the box and returns to his wife downstairs, determined he would be the husband he vowed to be.  
  
*  
  
Sydney learns from experience. You have to, if you're a spy. She never makes the same mistake twice.  
  
Which is why she's quitting the CIA and moving to Boston. Her credentials are still good, and she was accepted for a teaching job at a well to do high school, teaching literature. It was her dream for so long, she can't replace it, and it's a change. If it doesn't work out, Dixon said her job was always open if she came back. Somehow, she knows she won't. LA is too painful, too many memories of the life she used to have.  
  
Boston will be a new life, new friends, and maybe, after she's done healing, a new love.  
  
She imagines that she will make friends with the teacher from the classroom next to hers, and they will trade stories about the kids in their class during lunch in the teacher's lounge, laughing over the pasta or salad they brought from home, her friend (she imagines her name to be Mary) will introduce her to the other teachers, and soon she'll have a network of friends throughout the whole school.  
  
One night she and Mary will go out for drinks at a local bar, and Mary will try to get her to hit on the cute guy drinking a vodka tonic, but she'll refuse because the man looks too much like Vaughn or Danny or Noah. Mary will sense her reluctance is other than because she doesn't think she could get the guy, and doesn't push.  
  
It will be a year, and then the school will get a new teacher from Vermont. She and the new guy will hit it off right away, and the rumors will fly throughout school about them dating. They will, of course, deny it, but consider it in their minds. It will be another three months before he works up the nerve to ask her out, and she will accept, because Mary hisses in her ear, "You've taken your sweet time. Now go for it."  
  
She and Taylor (this is what she thinks his name will be) will take it slowly, going on several dates, romantic ones, and she will not feel guilty about falling in love with someone else. Because she does fall in love with him, and then, two years later, they will get married in a simple ceremony with only family and Mary present (Sydney invites her Dad, because she's kept up a correspondence with him and their bond has grown, even through the distance). She and Taylor will live happily, taunted by their pupils during the first weeks after she changes her name. Overall, everything would be completely and blissfully normal, the thing she ached for so many years.  
  
She doesn't allow herself to imagine any more. That life would be nice, but there are a million other ways it could go. She is ready for them all. 


End file.
